Elections: Argentines in Spain vote to elect their next president

Thousands of Argentines gather this Sunday in different points of Spain to definitively elect the next president of the country, who will take office on December 10, and the decision is between the official candidate and the current Minister of Economy, Sergio Massaand the ultraliberal Javier Milei.

Almost 436,000 Argentines are authorized to vote abroad and, after USASpain has the largest number of voters outside the country, with 85,388, where a large part of those registered on the registry are in Barcelona (47,071) and Madrid with 34,992 people authorized to vote.

In the Spanish capital, hundreds of Argentines were waiting their turn at the door of the South American country’s Residence Hall, in the University City, even half an hour before the opening of the fourteen tables that are gathered in this space.

Although voting abroad is not mandatory, the consul general of Argentina In Madrid, Daniel Plaza, declared that the same or greater turnout is expected than in the October elections, in which a historical record of electoral participation was broken.

“In the fourteen tables, it is always calculated based on the estimates of the actuaries that the influx is 10% of the people, but what happened in October was that 14% of the register came (…) A flood of unprecedented people”, tosigned by Plaza, who maintains that there is “an enormous fervor and commitment of the people to vote.”

One of those tables was 114, which was supervised by Andrés, from Freedom Advances (Milei’s formation), and Agustina, from Unión por la Patria (Massa’s), with Camila as vice president of the table, who said that, despite the fact that the president of their table had been absent, the vote was being held. “efficient”.

“A larger number of people came than in 2019, even Ricardo Alfonsín voted here, here (at this table) the provinces, those from the consulate and the embassy vote”assured Andrés to point out that the Argentine ambassador in Spain He had already cast his vote.

Voting abroad for Argentines will be in person and optional (not mandatory) and voting will not be possible by postal mail, the Argentine embassy in Madrid reported in a statement.

In the first round of the presidential elections, held on October 22, the candidate Sergio Massa beat Javier Milei by almost 7 points despite the fact that it was the Libertad Avanza candidate, who won the primaries last August, which were to define the lists of those who were going to compete in the elections.